Evaluation of the Reliabilty of Endoscopic Examination For Determining Gastritis

Objectives: This study was planned for evaluating the reliability of endoscopic examination findings in patients with dyspepsia. It can also be considered as a pilot study for broader, population studies. Materials and Methods: All files of the patients who underwent upper gastrointestinal endoscopy because of dyspeptic symptoms were included in the study. All files were analysed to acquire data including, demographics, history of the patients, comorbidities, and findings of all medical tests, especially endoscopic findings. Endoscopic and histopathological diagnoses were evaluated with descriptive and comparative statistics. Results: A total of 90 patient files were included. Mean age of the patients was 50.21±16.26. Group 1 included all patients who were diagnosed endoscopically as “Antral gastritis”, whereas group 2 consisted of the patients with no findings of any gastritis. Group 1 was formed of 72 patients where as group 2 had 18 patients. Total number of patients with histopathologically diagnosed chronic gastritis was 83 (92.2%). Correlation between endoscopic and histopathological examination of the stomach was found significant (κ=0.392; p<0.001). Endoscopic diagnosis of antral gastritis was also related with Helicobacter pylori infection in patients (p=0.003). Conclusion: We found that in our sample, the gastritis detection rate with endoscopic and histopathological examination was 80% and 92%, respectively. It seems that the reasons behind the very low rates of functional dyspepsia should be investigated. Endoscopic mucosal findings are significantly related to histopathological diagnosis of chronic gastritis. However, it is also noted that these relations tends to fade when we exclude cases with mild inflammation.